Jipe Vol. 12(1) June, 2020
Evolution and Policy Reforms in Tanzania: A Glance on Education Sector Development to Year 2010.
Newton M. Kyando [email protected] The Open University of Tanzania
ABSTRACT This article focuses on the education sector policy development in Tanzania, by a review of related literature. It starts with a brief on education in colonial times through of Mwalimu Nyerere in Tanzania politics; educational aspects of the Ujamaa na Kujitegemea policy leading into Education for Self Reliance; recent educational policies reflecting the reforms experienced in Tanzania; and finally a look at the most recent educational document, ESDP, as a working document. A close look reveals the long persisting educational problems that have been moving with the reforms. It is clear that the educational reforms and policies had, always, political forces behind them as well as global economic changes on its broadest sense. Post 1980 economic forces dismantled whatever was built by the political forces, in the name of reforms. These, when combined with existing problems, raises a number of questions; Is the failure of policy implementation a result of little or no consideration of educational research? And what is the educational research position when it comes to influencing policy implementation? This paper argues that reform and transformations in policies are based on foreign forces, ad hoc measures and limited scientific evaluation of issues from the local initiatives. This has led into catch up approach of policy making in education sector, making it difficult to establish long-term success base. By implication this means that scholars within the state borders, whether by design or default had stayed out of policy processes.
Keywords: Ujamaa, Kujitegemea, Education for Self-Reliance, Education Policy, Education Reforms
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INTRODUCTION The term education referred to in this paper is restricted to the formal approach to knowledge acquisition, the ‘Western’ mode of learning. This definition is adopted to avoid the contradiction that may arise between learning and education. The Western mode of knowledge is associated with literacy as a necessary, though not a sufficient way of determining the positive direction of learning. Education in this manner is assumed to have started as early as the time of the intrusion of foreigners in Tanzania (at that time Tanganyika and Zanzibar) from Europe and mid Asia. For the purpose of this paper, the focus starts with education in colonial times.
Education During Colonial Times In Tanganyika (the main land part of Tanzania), the first and formal colonial rule was that of the Germans. German rule was established after the Berlin conference in mid 1880s, and formal education at this time was established by the colonial rulers, also their religious communities, aiming at training the lower cadre officers to fit into the state operation and to serve as support staff in religious teaching at the local level. The German defeat in World War I marked the end of its colonial rule in Tanganyika; thereafter the territory was left in UN trusteeship under British mandatory power (Ishumi, 1978 Ssekamwa and Lugumba, 2001). However, the change in the ruling power did not change the focus of education provision. Rather it had an additional dimension in Tanganyika, just as in the other British colonies. For instance, in India the British administrator, Lord Macauley in 1836, clearly set the objective for education as:
We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and millions whom we govern- a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the western nomenclature and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population (Kapoor, 2001). Following the same ideology, a similar class had to be formed in Tanganyika. The majority of this small group, comprising mainly men who could read and write, was prepared to serve as clerks, office boys and junior officials in the district and provincial administration. For quite a long time, serving in such capacity was a novelty motivating not only the small number of school pupils but also their parents. Religious groups had, for
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related purposes established their own schools. This was primarily for preparing assistants in promoting the religious faith the missions wished to transfer to the communities. In the course of training African clerics at that time the religious groups also made room for other citizens, with priority to believers and potential believers. This added to the number of Tanganyikans schooled in the colonial times.
However, the balance between formal education and religious teaching varied significantly both between and within the religions. For the Islamic institutions which had a close tie to the Arab world, emphasis was on the Arabic language and on Islamic teaching. This was done in madrassahs as opposed to the missionary schools of the Christians, in which the potential priests had to major in the religious teachings. For Islamic Madrassahs Islamic knowledge was the main target in the name of ‘elimu akhera’ meaning heavenly knowledge. The sole focus on religious teaching in Islam has contributed to the present imbalance of elites in and between the religious groups in the present Tanzania (Ssekamwa and Lugumba, 2001). The few elites who had the privilege of getting into school formed exactly what Lord Macauley wanted - a group of black Europeans, English to be more specific, in opinion, and in tastes - and this created a gap between the elite and rest of the population. Sir Donald Cameron in 1925 as Governor of Tanganyika is quoted by Ishumi saying [in the calculated words]:
We must not in fact destroy the African atmosphere, the African mind, the whole foundations of his race …[instead] we [endeavour] to purge the native system of its abuses, to graft our higher civilization upon soundly rooted native stock … that [has] its foundations in the hearts and minds thoughts of the people (Ishumi, 1978:36).
This made the elite very privileged in almost every aspect of social life. It almost created a sort of conflict as the elites were the ‘civilized primitive natives’ and were placed at the ‘more human level’. This classification did not end with the departure of the colonial power; it survived the change at independence which was essentially the removal of white rulers. In relation to this, another aspect of elitism, the ownership of the means of production, raised itself. In this situation, the civil society felt that the national economy was largely in the hands of the few individuals who were ‘at the human level’, to put it in Cameron’s words. There was a call to return this wealth to mass ownership and stop further expansion of this situation (Eknes, 2003). This resulted in a national campaign
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following the Arusha Declaration. The declaration was pronounced on February, 5 1967. Before discussing the declaration, it is important to understand that the political changes from Tanganyika to the present Tanzania had in them the inspiration of the first President and most prominent politician in the country, Mwalimu Julius K. Nyerere (Tenga, 1994).
Mwalimu Nyerere in Tanzania’s Politics Julius K. Nyerere is a name that became prominent in Tanganyika in the last decade of colonial rule. He appeared in national politics as early as 1954 as a teacher at Pugu School after his graduation from Makerere, the University of East Africa. He had been elected as first Chairman of the newly formed Tanganyika African National Union (TANU). He organized the independence campaign for Tanganyika, getting people ready for African rule and holding a presentation on behalf of the Tanganyikans before the Security Council of the former United Nations Organization (UNO) which was a necessary condition for establishing African rule in their territory. His presentation was successful and on December 9, 1961 Tanganyika regained her independence and Julius Nyerere was her first prime minister. Nyerere became the first President in 1962 when Tanganyika was made a republic, then the first President of the United Republic of Tanzania as result of Tanganyika, the mainland, uniting with Zanzibar, the Tanzanian islands which by then had just gained independence through a revolution which ended the Sultan’s rule in Zanzibar (Ssekamwa and Lugumba, 2001). At this time Nyerere as President seemed to be unimpressed with the progress being made by the country he was leading. The big problem was the country’s economy. He looked at wealth distribution in the state, which appeared to contradict the major focus for African self-rule:
To tap the periphery of resources through mechanisms of capital-drain, resources-drain, body-drain and brain-drain. (Nyerere 1968: 10)
After independence the gap between the rich and poor was increasing; much of the means of production was in the hands of a few, mainly Europeans and Asians and a privileged few Africans. The education system was cited as an exacerbating factor for this uneven distribution of wealth, access to the means of production and more seriously the ownership of them (Nyerere 1968, Eknes 2003). Redistribution of wealth in the state and reallocating the means of production was called for in the Arusha Declaration. The Declaration aimed at solving the problem as fast as possible but also to make the solution a long term
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one. This splits the Declaration into two aspects, the economic aspects of the means of production and wealth redistribution on the one hand and the education necessary to equip Tanzanians with knowledge and to give them an understanding of general national goals on the other. It is in the interest of this paper to look mainly into the educational aspects of the Arusha Declaration (Nyerere, 1968; Ishumi, 1978).
Educational Aspects of the Arusha Declaration The Arusha Declaration had a strong economic focus. In it there was a push towards a socialist political orientation with the intention to press the state towards mass ownership of resources and utilisation of the means of production (resources) beginning from the grassroots, basically the villages. This was reflected in the Ujamaa na kujitegemea as a main theme in this Declaration. The two terms in the policy carry a meaning related to Socialism and Self-Reliance. The term has a paradoxical relation when it is blindly translated from its literal meaning. Ujamaa reflects a sharing and coming together, while kujitegemea reflects standing independently, being non-dependent. These carry opposing meanings to be combined into the one slogan, or policy for that matter (Tenga, 1994).
However, under these words lies a strong message leading to the real purpose of the Declaration. The real meaning extracted from the Kiswahili* language under the same dimensions, Ujamaa means ‘familyhood’. Family is looked at as the group of people with strong social ties. In this arrangement the members are expected to have common direction in their feelings if not the same magnitude of such feelings when it comes to events affecting the family. This was supposed to mean that the individuals from the group (family) will think of the group benefits first before looking into those of the individual. The kujitegemea aspect was intended to instil a sense of confidence in Tanganyika from the individual level to the national level. With this confidence, they were expected to exploit all the resources and potentials that exist in their localities before thinking of help from foreign sources. The internal mobilization of resources and responsibilities were the main focus of the kujitegemea. The educational aspects in Ujamaa and Kujitegemea may be summarized as follows (Nyerere 1968, Tenga, 1994).
Educational Aspects of Ujamaa The education system was meant to shape Tanzanians to look into a new mode
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of production, the socialist one. The capitalistic mode was to be seen as the colonial hang- over. The practice of Ujamaa was based on an ideology of sharing where the people communally owned the means of production. Social services were to be offered as the products of collective efforts in economic production. As part of the national ideology, every Tanzanian regardless of creed and race should work for the state as well as individual dignity. In turn the government had to provide the social services, including education. The education system in terms of schools was to be for everyone’s use. The schools were to shape the minds of the young generation towards the positive aspects of Ujamaa and its principles. The teaching of Ujamaa values proclaimed that:
In a socialistic society an individual succeeds in terms of respect, administration and love of his fellow citizen, by his desire to serve and by his contribution to the well being of the community. (Tenga 2000:32).
This states the fact that under the Ujamaa ideology a ‘patriotic feeling’ forms the main base for individual forces of action. Ujamaa, though identified as paradoxical with kujitegemea to form the Ujamaa na kujitegemea policy, the kujitegemea part of it was also a strong educational element of the Arusha Declaration. This is what formed the concept of Education for Self-Reliance. Education for Self-Reliance has been for a long time used as the education policy in Tanzania and still forms the basis for contemporary educational policies (Tenga, 2000). Some of its features are described below.
Educational Aspects of Kujitegemea- (Education for Self Reliance-ESR) The Arusha Declaration (Part Three) provides the detailed basis for the Self-Reliance policy. Society is prepared to participate in implementing the policy in two dimensions; the adult population at one end and the younger generation at the other. The central part of this policy and the main objective is to see to it that the local community is in command of its resources. Creativity, initiative, and entrepreneurship is given top priority (Nyerere, 1968). While the economic aspects of the Arusha Declaration demanded the redistribution of wealth, which was done by nationalization of accumulated private property, the educational aspects were intended to prevent the reformation of the classes that the Declaration intended to wipe out. The educational aspects had two measures to be taken; the first and immediate one was to nationalise all schools and other educational institutions as they were considered the central point of social class formation as addressed by the Declaration. All schools, most of which were owned by foreign linked institutions, which consciously and
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unconsciously had been creating social stratification leading to capital accumulation, were opposed by the socialists. The second measure in the education system for ESR was to offer an education that aimed to shape the attitude of both youth and adults alike on the qualities and potentials their nation has and how to exploit them. The first focus on the change of attitude was to impart a sense of responsibility to the privileged elite class that it had been easier for them to attend school because the rest of the population had sacrificed their part, without which it would not have been possible for them to reach this far. And for the adult elites ESR had to put down a clear stand as quoted in Eknes (2003): The privileges of the elites would be reduced, the import of luxury items greatly decreased, and a leadership code would forbid private money making activities (Eknes, 2003: 57).
This was to make the elite understand that the education they had received or were receiving, is actually part of the division of labour in their society. That is to say, their piecework is extended to their official responsibilities after their education. It is the role they play after school that counts as their payback for the privileges they had enjoyed as students. This concept is however very much challenged at present by educational economists as their studies indicate that no matter what political situation the society is in, the more time an individual spends in the education system, provided one goes up the academic ladder, the higher the private return achieved as opposed to the higher social returns at lower level of schooling (Nyerere, 1968; Hartog, 2000; and Psacharopolous, 2000). It has been almost impossible for the Tanzanian educational plans and documents to ignore the ideas advocated by ESR, as every document comes with the ESR objectives as the unchallenged or ‘given’ foundations including issues such as capacity building for youth to actually solve the problems faced in the communities, which are largely rural with a base in agricultural activities. Also, ESR has the intention of linking theory and practice for a more holistic and complete understanding of knowledge. More than thirty years after she gained her independence, Tanzania has been trying different strategies for improving the education performance which is already in decline. The strategies are found in various official documents that need to be looked into so that one understands better the education action plans and programmes (Ekness, 2003). For the purpose of this article most recent educational policies have been used. This includes the Education and Training Policy of 1995 and the Education Sector Development Programme (ESDP)
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document of 2000. However, the ESDP, according to my view is a modern and popular document accommodating the current global perspectives on educational development in addition to domestic priorities. In this respect it is outlined, as the document, under a specific section to give it its due weight in section 6.0.
1995 Educational Policies and Beyond Except for the Arusha Declaration which has in it, the idea of education for Self-Reliance and TANU’s party manifesto there has not been any other significant educational policy until 1995 when the government, through the Ministry of Education and Culture (MoEC), released its Education and Training Policy. It is in this policy that the focus is on compulsory education which includes both adult and primary education. Though the policy does give a flexible, unlimited time for an individual to learn in a frame work of adult education, it gives the structure of primary education as seven years, preceded by at least one year of pre-primary education provision (URT, 1995). The Education and Training Policy (ETP) underlines the tasks that the government has to undertake within the plan of action.
These tasks are based either on domestic forces and demand or international forces. In other areas both internal and external forces of demand are noted. This arrangement has actually helped to make the implementation easier as the area of intersection between the two sorts of forces is greater. This means a wider common area in which in the course of implementing one’s demand and the others’ need is also covered. The formulation of ETP was meant to lay down the strategies the Government of Tanzania has embraced for improving the provision and quality of education. Improving the provision of education indicates Government’s focus on the quality of service offered by the education sector to the civil population as a result of increased quantity of Government financial support to the sector, to put it in a simple way. The increased quantity of education sector services, as demanded by the civil population, is required to take care of the quality of the service so offered. This is for covering the domestic and the external labour markets which at present have a very fine line between them. Also, quality is seen as a recent and necessary attached condition on Education for All, as an international priority. The major objectives of this ETP are to achieve increased enrolments, equitable access, quality improvements, effective utilisation of resources and operational efficiency
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throughout the system. The objectives form a basis for policy and a plan of action and the wider perspective of the policy is among other things, to enhance partnerships in the delivery of education, broadening the financial base and the cost-effectiveness of education and streamlining education management structures through the devolution of authority to schools, local communities and local government authorities (URT,1995). As the ETP addressed the role and structure of the education sector, focusing on compulsory education (adult and primary level) and secondary education, which is subdivided into four years of ordinary secondary (O-level) and two years of advanced secondary (A-level), there was a need for a policy to address post-secondary education.
The National Higher Education Policy (NHEP) was released in February 1999 for this purpose. Higher education in Tanzania by 1999 had grown from a simple to a complex system since independence when Tanzania (Tanganyika) had only one higher learning institution (the University College of Dar-es-Salaam) to more than 20 higher education institutions. The NHEP has a focus on covering shortfalls and gaps in the ETP and guiding the provision of higher education. It also provides a guide for potential operational problems, conflicts and dissonances with respect to allocation of resources, governance, curricular provision and the final products of the process (URT, 1999). Concern for this policy was raised as result of the newly established Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education (MSTHE) in 1992. The NHEP on its first page has quoted one of the MSTHE’s ministerial internal memos which stated that:
...There has thus been a mushrooming of training centres and institutes catering basically for ministries and parastatals. The mushrooming of such centres and institutes appears to have been haphazardly (encouraged) without co-ordination to the extent that overlapping in some of the disciplines is common. (MSTHE Memo EJ/T/3/73 of 6.10.92) (URT, 1999:1).
The focus on effectiveness and efficiency of the higher education system was and is still a serious concern of the NHEP; duplication of the service offered by higher education was seen as result of a lack not only of an organizational body but also a lack of a common conceptualized and working definition of higher education. The policy was put forward in 1999, seven years after the formation of the Ministry in 1992, 38 years after Tanganyika’s independence. In all this time the problems that weighed heavily enough to get attention under the
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MSTHE, amidst an uncoordinated and unregulated proliferation of tertiary institutions, backed up seriously by the NHEP are, among others, constrained student enrolment expansion, an imbalance in the intake between the sciences and liberal arts in an age and environment demanding scientific literacy for technological advancement; and inadequate financing and material facilitation of higher education. The NHEP has focused on priorities such as resource allocation to the sub-sector; linking scientific and technological development; and putting an emphasis on training and research for development purposes. It then declares the fact that no national system can efficiently and effectively function without a clear philosophy and set of paradigms and guidelines for well defined goals and objectives in higher education (URT, 1999). The prioritizing of science teaching in the ETP, to the coordination of the higher learning institutions under the umbrella of a higher education system, is taken further by the National Science and Technology Policy for Tanzania (NSTP) of 1996. The pace of national development and its relationship to science training is a linkage that has been strongly advocated by the NHEP and is clearly borrowed from the NSTP in which it states that: Above all, the science and technology policy must be fully integrated into the overall socio-economic plan if it has to have any impact in enhancing the welfare of the people (URT, 1996:67a)
This is the intersection point of the three policies in education matters. There are also other policies, which do not necessarily address educational provision, but which rather address development. As part of the national development framework all policies have a focus on three major developmental issues proclaimed earlier at the time of independence as ignorance, poverty and disease. This is the basis for the national development framework and each of the policies must carry a detailed plan aimed at solving at least one of these issues. Of these three issues, ignorance is source of the other two; a solution on it will offer a breakthrough the blanket of problems covering Tanzania. This stands together with the idea that Education is a fundamental human right. It provides children, youth and adults with power to reflect, make choices and enjoy a better life. This breaks the cycle of poverty and is an important ingredient in economic and social development (URT, 1995; UNESCO, 2002). The role of education in alleviating poverty, has lead to it dominant position on the development agenda. The Tanzanian development agenda is no exception. Now and then the education sector is being attentively looked upon. Presently the operationalisation of development in Tanzania has been documented
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through the Education Sector Development Programme. This is the most recent working educational document available.
The Education Sector Development Programme (ESDP) The Education Sector Development Programme (ESDP) focuses on operationalising both the Education and Training Policy (ETP) and the vision through programmes and actions that would bring about and enhance the quality of educational services by taking measures to improve resource utilisation including human, material and financial resources. It also aims at strengthening management capacity, improving access and equity and strengthening quality assurance in the course of providing education (URT, 2000). The ESDP is designed to accommodate the macro-economic reforms that have been in place continuously from the mid 1980s to date. These changes in most cases were not taken into account when preparing the policies released in the 1990s, even in some of the most recent documents. The stepping stone in most of the documents that needs a back up mechanism is the role of the government, or rather the nation state in the changing global economy (URT, 1996b).
The ETP implementation plan of action and strategies were meant to take place in a centralized system of decision making. However, in recent years the government has moved into new style of organization. This is stipulated under the Organization and Efficiency reform component of the Public Service Reform Programme (PSRP). Under this reform the role of central government has remained that of formulating policies, provision of regulatory frameworks, monitoring and evaluation (URT, 2002). The ESDP document is seen as a multiple-bridge. It, first of all, links the educational documents to the educational and training policy both in terms of the timing of its release and the detailed content it carries. Through its sector wide approach, it addresses a convenient style of working in the present governmental reforms. Secondly, it serves to link the three Ministries to work together, namely the Ministry of Education and Culture as the responsible ministry for education and training policy, the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education, responsible for science development both in and out of the education system, and the Ministry of Regional Administration and Local Government which under the new reforms is responsible for mobilizing domestic resources at community level. This linking, as done by ESDP, could not be done better (not with the advantages mentioned) without it. On the one hand ESDP is linking the past
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and the future of education as in its second chapter it dwells much on the landmarks of change in the education sector right from independence to the present. From the landmarks the thrust behind the reforms is noted and summarized as: Synchronization of all sub-sector programmes for consistency; Restructuring of management and administration; Bottom-up planning of education; Mainstreaming gender and enhancement of gender parity; Educational management information system; Monitoring and evaluation; Financing and financial management; Enhancement of internal and external efficiency; and Growth and/or expansion of education and training services. In relation to these thrusts, the ESDP has laid down targets for a closer look, examining the weaknesses that existed in previous documents and policies.
The targets that the ESDP is to accomplish are listed as:- Eliminate illiteracy by 2010; Attain universal primary education by 2015; Raise minimum qualifications for primary school teachers to grade ‘A’; Provide all the schools with permanent and decent physical infrastructure; Establish a nation- wide network of teacher resource centres; Teacher /pupil ratio to be 1:45 (primary), 1: 35(lower secondary), 1:30 (upper secondary), 1:25 (teachers training colleges) and 1:25 (higher education); Raise the minimum qualification for a teachers’ college tutor to be a university degree with education; Nation- wide network for district based education database to be established; Eliminate the incidence of HIV/AIDS/STDs in education and training institutions; Raise achievement in academic performance at all levels of education to 75%; Attain 60% achievement in academic performance; Attain 50% transition rate from primary to secondary education; and; Attain gender parity at all levels of education. (URT, 2000: 7-8); This list of the targets gives the document an international quality as the issues in the list are global priorities and are within the international time-frame limits. Some are deliberately placed well in advance of international goals. This means the monitoring and evaluation teams have enough time to work and report, before the international workforces.
Contemporary Issues in Tanzanian Education The Tanzanian education system has been changing from time to time since independence. The major changes that are considered landmarks in the system include; the repealing and replacing of the 1927 education ordinance from the time of colonial rule, in 1962; formulation of the Education for Self-Reliance (ESR) policy in 1967; Musoma resolution on Universal Primary Education (UPE).
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Advanced level secondary school graduates to gain work experiences and discipline prior to joining higher education was announced in 1974. The Parliament passed the National Education Act no. 25 in 1978 and the amendment of the National Education Act no 25 of 1978 into the Education and Training Policy was finalised in 1995 (URT, 2000; 2001). The motives behind the changes is explained by two schools of thought. One school explains the changes as a reflection of the political trends Tanzania has been following since her independence. For this school the landmarks follow political events from both internal and external influences. The forces exerted on the education system include the independence of Tanganyika in late 1961, the Arusha Declaration as a move toward the Eastern Bloc in the time of the cold war in 1967, the fall of the East African Community which meant an end to the good relations between Tanzania and her two sister countries Uganda and Kenya, and the global campaign for universal primary Education for All pioneered by UNESCO from 1990 in which national plan and policy specificity was demanded of all party countries (Malekela, 1998).
The second school of thought views the series of changes as simply the results of inadequacies in the previous action plans and policies (Neave, 1998). When the one strategy totally fails the evaluation recommendation is to try something different; this is not the case when the action plan at least partly succeeds. The basis on which the two schools stand is basically the same i.e. the rapid and sometimes unpredictable domestic and international social and economic changes steered by a variety of political forces on the globe. Changes in the education system were aimed at solving an endless list of problems in the Tanzanian society. Just like any mechanical system where friction accounts for a reasonable amount of energy, the education system had been facing a number of problems since independence. Some of the problems have persisted for quite a long time and others appeared as time and situation changed. Some of the problems are seen in a vicious cycle relationship as they are actually the focus of the education sector and also make too slippery a surface for the system to achieve its objectives. The list of these problems is too long to be completely exhausted; however, it is quite fair to name the leading issues as noted in URT (2000) which are: - Dilapidated physical infrastructure: Especially in primary schools is a widely spread problem in the country. In a twenty first century marked by significant advances in science and technology, the schools in Tanzania have barely good furniture. It is not an unusual experience to walk
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into a school and find a class session conducted under a tree, multiple sessions in the same room and even classes conducted in a church building. This is one of the priority problems to be solved, as cited by the ESDP. Decreasing enrolment: The number of children being enrolled has been falling tremendously. There is a list of explanations for the cause of this situation. Among the reasons mentioned are parents’ low income, long distances from the schools, disabilities among the children and cultural barriers affecting education as a priority in communities. High and / or increasing drop outs: These are accounted for by the increased pervasiveness of poverty down to the individual as a reflection of poor economic performance of the country. The school fees in primary schools have been considered the main factor forcing children out of school. As part of the action plan for ESDP, the State has waived the fees at primary school level. However, the indirect costs attached to primary schooling still hold a good number of children out of school.
Lack of teaching and learning materials: The learning process in the schools needs learning and teaching materials in addition to the infrastructure. Most of the schools lack necessary teaching and learning aids, such as text books, reference books even chalkboards let alone teaching models. Low morale amongst the teaching staff: The teacher’s position in civil society has been placed at the lowest level. Also, the low wages the teachers get, contribute to the low morale the teachers have. To worsen the matter most teachers, live in the rural areas where the basic needs are barely available. Being far away from the town centres leaves them unevaluated for a long time, hence no feedback on their role or performance keeps their morale low. HIV/AIDS: The pandemic has hit the Tanzanian population and the sub-Saharan Africa region alike. The pandemic has killed and is continuing to claim a good number of lives including participants in the education sector, from the teachers and school pupils to the parents. At the same time AIDS has left a number of orphans, mostly primary school children and potential school children, with nobody to take care of them. This has affected school attendance; as older orphans are left taking care of the young ones in their homes. In this situation, schooling becomes an unlikely priority, only survival. It has been not so easy to map the problem in an accurate way as the HIV/ AIDS effects are mapped in a vicious cycle kind of relationship. Though the problems have been listed singly, one will find that they have been listed in accordance with the UNESCO’s classification of pressing educational issues and problems. UNESCO classifies
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the issues in four main groups, as summarized below (my italics):
The first group, not necessarily the priority, is the guiding principles group, which focuses on relevance, quality and efficiency of education; partnership or participation in education; and flexible, comprehensive, future-oriented and development-oriented education.
Second in the listing is the set of system- articulation and finance issues: this carries in it the decentralization of the education system and management; centralized decision making; federal systems and networks; strengthening of school autonomy; systems of life long learning; transition from one system of education to another; co-ordination and linkages of various systems within the education sector and other sectors in society; types and levels of education. The third category in this listing is the special areas of education which includes the: educational content and curricular integration; methods and materials; teacher training; learning technologies. And lastly, but definitely not the least, is the group named as the learner-related issues: cultural, linguistic and socio-economic backgrounds; illiteracy; gender equity; ethnic minorities; learning in remote and rural areas; and motivation, social and emotional problems (UNESCO, 1995).
Martin Carnoy (1999) would classify the issues as equity driven issues where the emphasis is on addressing opportunity (equal access) of every social group in the country with special arrangements to help the socially disadvantaged groups such as girls, children with physical disabilities and/or minority groups, being equally accommodated in the given education system. The second group in Carnoy’s listing would be the competitive driven issues. In this group the focus is on the standard of education measured by the needs of the society with respect to time and technological advancement. The third group of educational issues to be addressed falls under the financially driven issues where the focus is on making the education system work as efficiently and effectively as possible, the measure of performance being the output per unit cost (Carnoy, 1999). Costs are very much viewed from the state expenditure viewpoint as service provided, which means mobilizing local resources by persuading the stakeholders to pay for the services they receive, it is also viewed as strategy to lower state expenditure. This is actually a shift of costs to the stakeholders, and is considered as a lowering of service provision costs. It is this concept of educational provision costs that lies behind the flood of educational documents, some expressed as policies from the early 1990s in most of the developing
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countries. This was preceded by the Structural Adjustment Policies (SAP) advocated strongly by the World Bank accounting for educational reform hand in hand with other sectoral reforms (Daun, 2002).
Conclusion The overview given in this article on the education sector policy development in Tanzania, is meant to narrate a brief on education in colonial times through of Mwalimu Nyerere in Tanzania politics; educational aspects of the Ujamaa na Kujitegemea policy leading into Education for Self Reliance; recent educational policies reflecting the reforms experienced in Tanzania; and finally, a look at the most recent educational document, ESDP, as a working document. A close look at the education system reveals the long persisting educational problems that have been moving with the reforms. It is clear that the educational reforms and policies had, always, political forces behind them as well as global economic changes on its broadest sense. It is politics that placed Tanzania in the Eastern bloc during the Cold War. African socialism had been the basis of Tanzanian educational objectives, and the objectives have always remained unchanged or only slightly changed. It is politics that accommodated the socialist idea where only the ruling class had access to power, influencing all decisions made, including educational matters.
The ideology unfortunately did not get enough time to face the true test of time (Ishumi, 1978). From the late 1980s, economic forces started to dismantle whatever was built by the political forces, in the name of reform, as a result of the former’s failure (Eknes, 2003). These, when combined with the persistence of educational problems, raises a number of questions; Is the failure of policy implementation a result of little or no consideration of educational research? And what is the educational research position when it comes to its influence on policy implementation? This forms a central argument of this paper, that reform and transformations in educational policies are based on foreign forces, ad hoc measures and limited scientific evaluation of issues from the local or rather internal initiatives. This as result had led into catch up approach of policy making in education sector, making it difficult to establish long term success trend. By implication this means that scholars within the state borders, whether by design or default had stayed out of policy processes. This has arguably left the policies subjected to more political forces as opposed to scientific analysis.
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